Tuesday, May 23, 2017

David Brooks Urges Out-Of-Touch Snobs to Listen to the Wisdom of the Meatheads

For at least the hundredth time, America's Most Famous Speaker-for-Plutocrats has again manifested an entire New York Times op-end column excoriating the political correctness and "faculty lounge" sensibilities of, well, somebody. Apparently, is reckless faculty loungery that makes Trump voters have bad fee-fees over their profound, malignant and self-inflicted ignorance and their often out-and-proud racism, and those bad fee-fees are, in turn, the reason why everything is fucked up and shit.

The campaign of 2016 was an education in the deep problems facing the country. Angry voters made a few things abundantly clear: that modern democratic capitalism is not working for them; that basic institutions like the family and communities are falling apart; that we have a college educated elite that has found ingenious ways to make everybody else feel invisible, that has managed to transfer wealth upward to itself, that crashes the hammer of political correctness down on anybody who does not have faculty lounge views.

Mr. Brooks then goes on to cite one of his Conservative ideological clones to underline his point --

As Robert W. Merry put it recently in The American Conservative...

-- before moving on to citing yet another Beltway Conservative and Brooks acolyte to underline his point once again:

As Yuval Levin argues in a brilliant essay in Modern Age...

Because if three, ideologically interchangeable Brooksian Conservatives say a thing, well then that thing must obviously be true!

And what would a David Brooks column be without a big, steaming load of Both Siderism smack in the middle of his addled Whiggish reveries?

Alienation also breeds a zero-sum mind-set — it’s us or them — and with it a tribal clannishness and desire for exclusion. As Levin notes, on the right alienation can foster a desire for purity — to exclude the foreign — and on the left it can foster a desire for conformity — to squelch differing speakers and faiths.

And, of course, after the main course of Medallions of False Equivalence Turd main is served and cleared, then comes dessert and brandy in the form of Mr. Brooks' utterly predictable call for Both Sides to be rejected in favor of a brand-new political elite, led by insightful yet humble Whiggish heroes like, say, David Fucking Brooks:

Now is the moment for a new establishment to organize, to address the spirit of alienation that gave rise to Trump, but which transcends him.

In other words, exactly the same lazy, dishonest, dishonorable Beltway-enthralling bullshit that David Brooks has been very profitably slinging -- come rain or shine or End of Days -- for an audience of millions for over a decade now (David Brooks, August 10, 2006) --

Party No. 3

...The McCain-Lieberman Party begins with a rejection of the Sunni-Shiite style of politics itself. It rejects those whose emotional attachment to their party is so all-consuming it becomes a form of tribalism, and who believe the only way to get American voters to respond is through aggression and stridency.The flamers in the established parties tell themselves that their enemies are so vicious they have to be vicious too. They rationalize their behavior by insisting that circumstances have forced them to shelve their integrity for the good of the country. They imagine that once they have achieved victory through pulverizing rhetoric they will return to the moderate and nuanced sensibilities they think they still possess.But the experience of DeLay and the net-root DeLays in the Democratic Party amply demonstrates that means determine ends. Hyper-partisans may have started with subtle beliefs, but their beliefs led them to partisanship and their partisanship led to malice and malice made them extremist, and pretty soon they were no longer the same people...

If Bobo is going to do nothing but recycle his old beerfarts over and over again into new column inches, then I may resort to rerunning old refutations and save my secret, new adjectives for new arguments. Because in his Thursday column, Bobo just retreads the tired, discredited "Tyranny of False Bisection" dodge and runs it around the block.

Again.

You know the joke (driftglass tm):

So Dick Cheney is found, naked, on the White House lawn tossing burning kittens at homeless veterans and hitting babies with a ball-peen hammer.

What are the first three words out of David Brooks’ mouth?

“But the Democrats!”

Here’s a snip from his column entitled “Party No. 3”, mercifully walled up like Fortunato behind the subscription-only fortification of the NYT...
...

Finally, because I am sprinting between appointments today, I can only provide you with this brief and incomplete list of words and phrases you will not find anywhere in Mr. Brooks' impotent indictment of our parlous modern times:

But the experience of DeLay and the net-root DeLays in the Democratic Party...

That has to be one of the essential Both Siderist liturgies. The Republican leadership is corrupt and hostile and some people who support Democrats are jerks. Ergo, Both Sides Have Failed. Never mind that there's never been a "liberal movement" within the Democratic Party that's anywhere as belligerent as the conservative movement on the other side; never mind that in my lifetime, we've never had a President as liberal as Reagan was conservative, or a Congress as liberal as today's Congress is conservative. Some liberals protest Charles Murray and that's just as bad as fucking up the country.

Republican questions are as;-What about the leaks.-My democratic colleagues say, (putting their words in other mouths).-Some democrats (unamed) tell me they see no collusion, can you tell me if you know of any?-Many Democrats say,_____.-I see nothing.And DFB lives with the same brain tumor......................

Indeed. The Whig, dipshit plutocrats who pay Brooks et al. salaries learned that their finely crafted 30 year cannon fodder voter army that they gave millions to guys like Roger Ailes to create aren't going to be satisfied anymore with the stuffed suit saying 1980's dogwhistles.

Annoying, but no matter.

Because the last 100+ days is confirmation that the same Economically-Anxious-White-Working-Class-Abandoned-By-Democrats (TM) is still only concerned about achieving some Tribalist Fascist Fever Dream victory over their own survival...just like (and this is important to remember) back in the "good old days" when they weren't "Economically Anxious" and a young Mr. Ailes had dreams of turning marginal Rightwing Nationalist Newsletters and AM Radio into a 24/7 propaganda network.

Like my House Rep. who promised to repeal and replace Obamacare because of big Gov't rammed down virgin throats. made of secret back room deals, etc,etc,etc..Uses partisan majority, backroom deals, leadership forced leadership amendments, using big Gov't to ram down throats forcing everyone to adhere to Big Federal gov't (did I say that enough?).voting for a health care bill without any CBO fiscal scoring.Returns home to write in paper, and I quote, "Their are many on the far left that are fear mongering this health care Rescue Mission". Unquote.

So anyone that has valid questions, hard question, opposing view questions, questions of fiscal responsibility of voting fiscally blind.Because he wrote that in his article (health care disclaimer). He (and republicans) can dismiss any criticism as "FAR LEft fear MONGERING".If only someone with DFB's exclusive vision could address my congressman with his conservative mind meld.By asking;If extracting hundreds of billions out of health care (for tax cuts) makes the replacement health care plan better.

So if we extract hundreds of billions out of military spending. Would it not have the same effect of making the military better as well?

If only a DFB would bless us with his poetic absurdities on this. I just believe he could make the difference. To make things worse, that is. That is the conseervative goal, right?

Transcends Trump. That bar is SO low even Brooks might get over it ...if he didn't trip over his own prose in the attempt. That the NYT repeatedly prints his gibberish is a major embarrassment​. But then we have President Trump, so embarrassment knows no bounds ...regardless.